Another Denton first: screening ads on the ABC

The decision by the ABC to broadcast a series deconstructing the advertising world came right from the top, says the television personality Andrew Denton. His production company made the series, which begins this month.

In 10 episodes, The Gruen Transfer - named after the Austrian who designed the first shopping mall - promises to "reveal the tricks and secrets of the ad industry".

But its maker says that although the ABC allowed spoof ads for beer, a bank and cosmetics to spruik the show, there was sensitivity over airing a series devoted to the "pointy end of capitalism".

"We explained to the highest levels of management that no one else can do it and take it seriously and look at how it works," says Denton, whose production company, Zapruder's Other Films, was commissioned to make the series last year.

Hosted by the comedian Wil Anderson, its panel of four executives pull apart ad techniques, explain why ads are made the way they are and judge the best creative treatment of hard-sells.

Two senior executives, Russel Howcroft of George Patterson Y&R and Todd Sampson of Leo Burnett, have appeared on the panel in pilots, which have included a forensic look at chocolate ads, the folly or otherwise of taking the mickey out of your own brand and how to make Brendan Nelson electable.

Denton says he is a fan of advertising, which at its best is "an extraordinary art form", though he rails at the thought of the ABC ever screening ads.

"This show is proof of it," he said. "You need to have a public broadcaster not beholden to anyone and advertising would make that impossible."

A recent trip to the supermarket reactivated an idea that was sown in the early 1990s when he asked ad-land to sell euthanasia for a spot on his Channel Seven show Denton.

The moment that sealed it for him came when he reached for a particular brand of washing-up liquid even though he knew it was no better than the one next to it and was more expensive. "I was doing it because that ad says this and I am happy to go along with it. I don't think any of us are immune to advertising and that's the point of the show."

The series comes as alcopops and the sexualisation of children are in the news. "We always get the commentators and the politicians … but we don't hear from the people who make this stuff," Denton says.

"I hope the show is going to air the kind of debate publicly that the industry has privately and I don't want to back away from it."

For the record, Denton's favourite advertisements are BigPond's Great Wall of China ad and one for Hahn Premium Light showing a boofhead diving onto a beanbag.